Zoara, the biblical Tzo'ar (Genesis 14:8), was one of the five "cities of the plain"[1] – a pentapolis at the time of Abraham, it was a highly fertile valley apparently located along the lower Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea plain and mentioned in the Book of Genesis. The city was said to have been spared the "brimstone and fire" which destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah in order to provide a refuge for Lot and his daughters.[2] It is mentioned by Josephus;[3] by Ptolemy (V, xvi, 4); and by Eusebius and Saint Jerome in the Onomasticon.[4][5]The Catholic Encyclopedia called it "a flourishing oasis where the balsam, indigo, and date trees bloom luxuriantly".[6][7]
Zoara, meaning "small" or "insignificance" in Hebrew (a "little one" as Lot called it), was a city east of Jordan in the vale of Siddim, near the Dead Sea. Along with Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, Zoar was one of the 5 cities slated for destruction by God; but Zoar was spared at Lot's plea as his place of refuge (Genesis 19:20–23). Segor is the Septuagint form of "Zoar". A Zoar is mentioned in Isaiah 15:5 in connection with the nation of Moab. This connection with Moab would be consistent with a location near the lower Dead Sea plain.
Other ancient referencesedit
Egeria the pilgrim tells of a bishop of Zoara that accompanied her in the area, in the early 380s. Antoninus of Piacenza in the 6th century describes its monks, and extols its palm trees.[6][8]
Zoara is mentioned in Tractate Pesachim of the Babylonian Talmud as a place where date palms grew.[9] In Tractate Yevamot, the city is mentioned in regards to a woman's testimony, when a traveling Levite died at an inn, and the woman innkeeper had him buried.[10]
The Notitia Dignitatum, 72, places at Zoara, as a garrison, the resident equites sagitarii indigenae (native unit of cavalry archers); Stephen of Byzantium (De urbibus, s.v. Addana) speaks also of its fort, which is mentioned in a Byzantine edit of the 5th century (Revue biblique, 1909, 99); near the city was a sanctuary to Saint Lot. mentioned by Hierocles (Synecdemus) and George of Cyprus.[11][12]
In the Madaba Map of the sixth century, it is represented in the midst of a grove of palm trees under the names of Balac or Segor.[13]
Zoar on the Madaba map
During the Crusader period it took the name of Palmer, or of Paumier. William of Tyre (XXII, 30) and Fulcher of Chartres (Hist. hierosol., V) have left descriptions of it, as well as the Arabian geographers, who highly praise the sweetness of its dates.[6] It is not known when the city disappeared;[12]
"Zoar, by the prayer of Lot, was saved and kept a great while, for it was set upon a hill; and yet sheweth thereof some part above the water, and men may see the walls when it is fair weather and clear."[14]
Isidore, mentioned in 518 when Isidore signed the synodal letter of Patriarch John of Jerusalem against Severus of Antioch.
John, in 536 signed the acts of the synod of Jerusalem convoked by Patriarch Peter against Antime of Constantinople and saw the bishops of the Three Palestines together. In the same year, in May, John also took part in the synod of Constantinople by Patriarch Mena to condemn Antimo.
An anonymous bishop is mentioned in the Itinera hierosolymitana of the end of the fourth century (Vailhé).
Catholic titular seeedit
The Roman Catholic Church still recognizes the diocese of Zoara (in Latin: Dioecesis Zoarensis) as a suppressed and titular see of the Roman Catholic Church, in Jordan, though the seat is vacant since August 25, 2001. Known Catholic bishops include:
Francesco Maria Cutroneo (March 15, 1773 – November 1780)[17]
José Nicolau de Azevedo Coutinho Gentil [pt] (July 18, 1783 – 1807)
Jean-Henri Baldus, (March 2, 1844 – September 29, 1869)[18]
Claude-Thierry Obré (December 14, 1877 – December 14, 1881)[19]
Pedro José Sánchez Carrascosa y Carrión (March 30, 1882 – 1896)
René-Marie-Joseph Perros, (September 17, 1909 – November 27, 1952)[20]
Antonio Capdevilla Ferrando (March 24, 1953 – August 12, 1962)[21]
Wacław Skomorucha [pl] (November 21, 1962 – August 25, 2001)
Other referencesedit
The Syriac Chronicles of Michael the Syrian (12th century) and of Bar Hebraeus (thirteenth century) contain some obscure traditions regarding the founding of some of the "cities of the plain". According to these accounts, during the lifetime of Nahor (Abraham's grandfather), a certain Canaanite named Armonius had two sons named Sodom and Gomorrah, for whom he named two newly built towns, naming a third (Zoara) after their mother.
Prior to the major archaeological excavations in the 1980s and 1990s that took place in Zoara, scholars proposed that several sites in the area of Khirbet Sheikh 'Isa and al-Naq' offered further evidence of Zoara's location and history. Further information regarding Zoara in different historical epochs were obtained through the descriptions of Arabian geographers, suggesting that Zoara served as an important station in the Aqaba-to-Jericho trade route, and through Eusebius' statement that the Dead Sea was situated between Zoar and Jericho. Researchers who have studied ancient texts portray Zoara as a town erected in the middle of a flourishing oasis, watered by rivers flowing down from the high Moab Mountains in the east. The sweet dates that grew abundantly on the palm trees surrounding Zoara are also mentioned in some historical texts.[23]
Several excavation surveys have been conducted in this area in the years 1986-1996. Ruins of a basilical church that were discovered in the site of Deir 'Ain 'Abata ("Monastery at the Abata Spring" in Arabic), were identified as the Sanctuary of Agios (Saint) Lot. An adjacent cave is ascribed as the location where Lot and his daughters took refuge during the destruction of Sodom. About 300 engraved funerary steles in the Khirbet Sheikh 'Isa area in Ghor es-Safi were found in 1995. Most gravestones were inscribed in Greek and thus attributed to Christian burials, while several stones were inscribed in Aramaic, suggesting that they belong to Jewish burials. Of these, two inscriptions reveal the origins of the deceased as being Jews that hailed from Ḥimyar (now Yemen) and are funerary inscriptions dating back to 470 and 477 A.D., written in the combined Hebrew, Aramaic and Sabaean scripts. In one of them it was noted that the deceased was brought from Ẓafār, the capital of the Kingdom of Ḥimyar, to be buried in Zoar.[24] These gravestones have all been traced back to the fourth-fifth centuries A.D., when Zoara was an important Jewish center. Unusually, Christians and Jews were buried in the same cemetery.[25]
^Eusebius (2006) [manuscript, 1971]. Wolf, Carl Umhau (ed.). The Onomasticon of Eusebius Pamphili, Compared with the Version of Jerome and Annotated. tertullian.org. Zeta, in Genesis. Zogera (Zogora).467 In Jeremia. City of Moab. It is now called Zoora or Sigor (Segor), one of the five cities of Sodom.
^Eusebius (1904). Klostermann, Erich (ed.). Das Onomastikon der Biblischen Ortsnamen. Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte (in Greek and Latin). Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs. 94-95. OCLC 490976390.
^Herbert Donner, The Mosaic Map of Madaba. An Introductory Guide, Palaestina Antiqua 7 (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1992), 37–94; Eugenio Alliata and Michele Piccirillo, eds., The Madaba Map Centenary: Travelling Through the Byzantine Umayyad Period. Proceedings of the International Conference Held in Amman 7–9 April 1997, Studium Biblicum Franciscannum Collectio Maior 40 (Jerusalem: Studium Biblicum Franciscannum, 1999), 121–24
^Mandeville, John (1900). The Travels Of Sir John Mandeville. Macmillan. p. 40.
^Annuario Pontificio 2013 (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2013, ISBN978-88-209-9070-1), p. 1013
^Le Quien, Michel (1740). "Ecclesia Zoarorum sive Segor". Oriens Christianus, in quatuor Patriarchatus digestus: quo exhibentur ecclesiæ, patriarchæ, cæterique præsules totius Orientis. Tomus tertius, Ecclesiam Maronitarum, Patriarchatum Hierosolymitanum, & quotquot fuerunt Ritûs Latini tam Patriarchæ quàm inferiores Præsules in quatuor Patriarchatibus & in Oriente universo, complectens (in Latin). Paris: Ex Typographia Regia. cols. 737–746. OCLC 955922748.
^"Bishop Francesco Maria Cotroneo [Catholic-Hierarchy]". www.catholic-hierarchy.org. Retrieved 2023-07-06.
^"Bishop Antonio Capdevilla Ferrando [Catholic-Hierarchy]". www.catholic-hierarchy.org. Retrieved 2023-07-06.
^ Thomas O'Toole, Ebla Tablets: No Biblical Claims Washington PostDecember 9, 1979
^"Contract for a Date Crop - P.Yadin 19 (Yadin Papyri)". www.kchanson.com. Retrieved 2023-07-06.
^Naveh, Joseph (1995). "Aramaic Tombstones from Zoar". Tarbiẕ (Hebrew) (64): 477–497. JSTOR 23599945.; Naveh, Joseph (2000). "Seven New Epitaphs from Zoar". Tarbiẕ (Hebrew) (69): 619–636. JSTOR 23600873.; Joseph Naveh, A Bi-Lingual Tomb Inscription from Sheba, Journal: Leshonenu (issue 65), 2003, pp. 117–120 (Hebrew); G.W. Nebe and A. Sima, Die aramäisch/hebräisch-sabäische Grabinschrift der Lea, Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 15, 2004, pp. 76–83.
^Yael Wilfand (2009). "Aramaic Tombstones from Zoar and Jewish Conceptions of the Afterlife". Journal for the Study of Judaism. 40 (4–5): 510–539. doi:10.1163/157006309X443521.
Bibliographyedit
Politis, Konstantinos D.. Ancient Landscapes of Zoara I: Surveys and Excavations at the Ghor As-Safi in Jordan, 1997–2018. N.p., Taylor & Francis, 2020.
zoara, biblical, genesis, five, cities, plain, pentapolis, time, abraham, highly, fertile, valley, apparently, located, along, lower, jordan, valley, dead, plain, mentioned, book, genesis, city, said, have, been, spared, brimstone, fire, which, destroyed, sodo. Zoara the biblical Tzo ar Genesis 14 8 was one of the five cities of the plain 1 a pentapolis at the time of Abraham it was a highly fertile valley apparently located along the lower Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea plain and mentioned in the Book of Genesis The city was said to have been spared the brimstone and fire which destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah in order to provide a refuge for Lot and his daughters 2 It is mentioned by Josephus 3 by Ptolemy V xvi 4 and by Eusebius and Saint Jerome in the Onomasticon 4 5 The Catholic Encyclopedia called it a flourishing oasis where the balsam indigo and date trees bloom luxuriantly 6 7 Proposed location of Zoara As Safi Contents 1 In the Bible 2 Other ancient references 3 Christianity 3 1 Bishopric 3 2 Catholic titular see 4 Other references 5 Archaeology 6 See also 7 References 8 BibliographyIn the Bible editZoara meaning small or insignificance in Hebrew a little one as Lot called it was a city east of Jordan in the vale of Siddim near the Dead Sea Along with Sodom Gomorrah Admah and Zeboim Zoar was one of the 5 cities slated for destruction by God but Zoar was spared at Lot s plea as his place of refuge Genesis 19 20 23 Segor is the Septuagint form of Zoar A Zoar is mentioned in Isaiah 15 5 in connection with the nation of Moab This connection with Moab would be consistent with a location near the lower Dead Sea plain Other ancient references editEgeria the pilgrim tells of a bishop of Zoara that accompanied her in the area in the early 380s Antoninus of Piacenza in the 6th century describes its monks and extols its palm trees 6 8 Zoara is mentioned in Tractate Pesachim of the Babylonian Talmud as a place where date palms grew 9 In Tractate Yevamot the city is mentioned in regards to a woman s testimony when a traveling Levite died at an inn and the woman innkeeper had him buried 10 The Notitia Dignitatum 72 places at Zoara as a garrison the resident equites sagitarii indigenae native unit of cavalry archers Stephen of Byzantium De urbibus s v Addana speaks also of its fort which is mentioned in a Byzantine edit of the 5th century Revue biblique 1909 99 near the city was a sanctuary to Saint Lot mentioned by Hierocles Synecdemus and George of Cyprus 11 12 In the Madaba Map of the sixth century it is represented in the midst of a grove of palm trees under the names of Balac or Segor 13 nbsp Zoar on the Madaba mapDuring the Crusader period it took the name of Palmer or of Paumier William of Tyre XXII 30 and Fulcher of Chartres Hist hierosol V have left descriptions of it as well as the Arabian geographers who highly praise the sweetness of its dates 6 It is not known when the city disappeared 12 According to the 14th century travelogue The Travels Of Sir John Mandeville Zoar by the prayer of Lot was saved and kept a great while for it was set upon a hill and yet sheweth thereof some part above the water and men may see the walls when it is fair weather and clear 14 Christianity editBishopric edit Zoara was part of the late Roman province of Palaestina Tertia It became a bishopric and is included in the Catholic Church s list of titular sees 15 Le Quien gives the names of three of its bishops 16 Musonius present at the Second Council of Ephesus 449 and the Council of Chalcedon 451 Isidore mentioned in 518 when Isidore signed the synodal letter of Patriarch John of Jerusalem against Severus of Antioch John in 536 signed the acts of the synod of Jerusalem convoked by Patriarch Peter against Antime of Constantinople and saw the bishops of the Three Palestines together In the same year in May John also took part in the synod of Constantinople by Patriarch Mena to condemn Antimo An anonymous bishop is mentioned in the Itinera hierosolymitana of the end of the fourth century Vailhe Catholic titular see edit The Roman Catholic Church still recognizes the diocese of Zoara in Latin Dioecesis Zoarensis as a suppressed and titular see of the Roman Catholic Church in Jordan though the seat is vacant since August 25 2001 Known Catholic bishops include Francesco Maria Cutroneo March 15 1773 November 1780 17 Jose Nicolau de Azevedo Coutinho Gentil pt July 18 1783 1807 Jean Henri Baldus March 2 1844 September 29 1869 18 Claude Thierry Obre December 14 1877 December 14 1881 19 Pedro Jose Sanchez Carrascosa y Carrion March 30 1882 1896 Patrick Vincent Dwyer January 30 1897 July 9 1909 Rene Marie Joseph Perros September 17 1909 November 27 1952 20 Antonio Capdevilla Ferrando March 24 1953 August 12 1962 21 Waclaw Skomorucha pl November 21 1962 August 25 2001 Other references editThe Syriac Chronicles of Michael the Syrian 12th century and of Bar Hebraeus thirteenth century contain some obscure traditions regarding the founding of some of the cities of the plain According to these accounts during the lifetime of Nahor Abraham s grandfather a certain Canaanite named Armonius had two sons named Sodom and Gomorrah for whom he named two newly built towns naming a third Zoara after their mother Zoara is not mentioned in the Ebla tablets though there has also been some conjecture that Admah with which it biblically tied is mentioned in the Ebla tablets 22 Archaeology editMain article Ghor es Safi Prior to the major archaeological excavations in the 1980s and 1990s that took place in Zoara scholars proposed that several sites in the area of Khirbet Sheikh Isa and al Naq offered further evidence of Zoara s location and history Further information regarding Zoara in different historical epochs were obtained through the descriptions of Arabian geographers suggesting that Zoara served as an important station in the Aqaba to Jericho trade route and through Eusebius statement that the Dead Sea was situated between Zoar and Jericho Researchers who have studied ancient texts portray Zoara as a town erected in the middle of a flourishing oasis watered by rivers flowing down from the high Moab Mountains in the east The sweet dates that grew abundantly on the palm trees surrounding Zoara are also mentioned in some historical texts 23 Several excavation surveys have been conducted in this area in the years 1986 1996 Ruins of a basilical church that were discovered in the site of Deir Ain Abata Monastery at the Abata Spring in Arabic were identified as the Sanctuary of Agios Saint Lot An adjacent cave is ascribed as the location where Lot and his daughters took refuge during the destruction of Sodom About 300 engraved funerary steles in the Khirbet Sheikh Isa area in Ghor es Safi were found in 1995 Most gravestones were inscribed in Greek and thus attributed to Christian burials while several stones were inscribed in Aramaic suggesting that they belong to Jewish burials Of these two inscriptions reveal the origins of the deceased as being Jews that hailed from Ḥimyar now Yemen and are funerary inscriptions dating back to 470 and 477 A D written in the combined Hebrew Aramaic and Sabaean scripts In one of them it was noted that the deceased was brought from Ẓafar the capital of the Kingdom of Ḥimyar to be buried in Zoar 24 These gravestones have all been traced back to the fourth fifth centuries A D when Zoara was an important Jewish center Unusually Christians and Jews were buried in the same cemetery 25 See also editAdmah one of the five cities of the plain Sodom and Gomorrah two of the five cities of the plain Zeboim one of the five cities of the plain References edit nbsp Wikisource has the text of the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia article Zoara Genesis 14 2 8 Genesis 13 10 Genesis 19 22 30 Ant Jud XIII xv 4 Bell Jud IV viii 4 Eusebius 2006 manuscript 1971 Wolf Carl Umhau ed The Onomasticon of Eusebius Pamphili Compared with the Version of Jerome and Annotated tertullian org Zeta in Genesis Zogera Zogora 467 In Jeremia City of Moab It is now called Zoora or Sigor Segor one of the five cities of Sodom Eusebius 1904 Klostermann Erich ed Das Onomastikon der Biblischen Ortsnamen Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte in Greek and Latin Leipzig J C Hinrichs 94 95 OCLC 490976390 a b c Guy Le Strange Palestine under the Moslems 289 Vailhe Simeon 1912 Zoara The Catholic Encyclopedia New York Robert Appleton Company Retrieved 2023 07 06 Egeria The Pilgrimage of Etheria trans M L McClure and C L Feltoe London Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge 1919 20 23 24 Pesachim 52a 10 Yevamot 122a 16 Description of the Roman World a b CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA Zoara www newadvent org Retrieved 2018 02 12 Herbert Donner The Mosaic Map of Madaba An Introductory Guide Palaestina Antiqua 7 Kampen Kok Pharos 1992 37 94 Eugenio Alliata and Michele Piccirillo eds The Madaba Map Centenary Travelling Through the Byzantine Umayyad Period Proceedings of the International Conference Held in Amman 7 9 April 1997 Studium Biblicum Franciscannum Collectio Maior 40 Jerusalem Studium Biblicum Franciscannum 1999 121 24 Mandeville John 1900 The Travels Of Sir John Mandeville Macmillan p 40 Annuario Pontificio 2013 Libreria Editrice Vaticana 2013 ISBN 978 88 209 9070 1 p 1013 Le Quien Michel 1740 Ecclesia Zoarorum sive Segor Oriens Christianus in quatuor Patriarchatus digestus quo exhibentur ecclesiae patriarchae caeterique praesules totius Orientis Tomus tertius Ecclesiam Maronitarum Patriarchatum Hierosolymitanum amp quotquot fuerunt Ritus Latini tam Patriarchae quam inferiores Praesules in quatuor Patriarchatibus amp in Oriente universo complectens in Latin Paris Ex Typographia Regia cols 737 746 OCLC 955922748 Bishop Francesco Maria Cotroneo Catholic Hierarchy www catholic hierarchy org Retrieved 2023 07 06 Bishop Jean Henri Baldus Catholic Hierarchy www catholic hierarchy org Retrieved 2023 07 06 Bishop Claude Thierry Obre Catholic Hierarchy www catholic hierarchy org Retrieved 2023 07 06 Bishop Rene Marie Joseph Perros Catholic Hierarchy catholic hierarchy org Retrieved 2023 07 06 Bishop Antonio Capdevilla Ferrando Catholic Hierarchy www catholic hierarchy org Retrieved 2023 07 06 Thomas O Toole Ebla Tablets No Biblical Claims Washington PostDecember 9 1979 Contract for a Date Crop P Yadin 19 Yadin Papyri www kchanson com Retrieved 2023 07 06 Naveh Joseph 1995 Aramaic Tombstones from Zoar Tarbiẕ Hebrew 64 477 497 JSTOR 23599945 Naveh Joseph 2000 Seven New Epitaphs from Zoar Tarbiẕ Hebrew 69 619 636 JSTOR 23600873 Joseph Naveh A Bi Lingual Tomb Inscription from Sheba Journal Leshonenu issue 65 2003 pp 117 120 Hebrew G W Nebe and A Sima Die aramaisch hebraisch sabaische Grabinschrift der Lea Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 15 2004 pp 76 83 Yael Wilfand 2009 Aramaic Tombstones from Zoar and Jewish Conceptions of the Afterlife Journal for the Study of Judaism 40 4 5 510 539 doi 10 1163 157006309X443521 Bibliography editPolitis Konstantinos D Ancient Landscapes of Zoara I Surveys and Excavations at the Ghor As Safi in Jordan 1997 2018 N p Taylor amp Francis 2020 31 02 49 N 35 30 09 E 31 04694 N 35 50250 E 31 04694 35 50250 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Zoara amp oldid 1176867054, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
